Camera/Lens/Accessories Deal-Breakers.

Wow. They even give instructions for the camera, and it looks pretty straight forward. They also note that it will not affect AF performance. I just need to figure out which style screen I’d like, and would be brighter than the original. A, B, or L would ALL make manual focus so much easier on that camera. And as I just bought a boatload of manual focus lenses, I think I’ll give this a whirl at some point.
That's pretty satisfying to do, actually.

This Taiwanese shop stocks all sorts of focusing screens. The trouble is that you can't take a screen from an old F3 and stick it to your Df, it's going to be too large. I think they source those screens somewhere and then they cut them to order. They're not necessarily a 100% perfect fit but what I got is close enough.
Did you get the service centre to recalibrate the exposure metre or did you just compensate in-camera?

Photography forum participants tend to be older and often have followed the SLR-DSLR-mirrorless technology arc. While a common theme in camera form factor discussions is desire for (D)SLR style ergonomics, nobody I know outside of the enthusiast community shares the preference.
I find that many prefer it but it's not necessarily a deal-breaker for them, just personal taste. It's just that single-handed operation is easier with such ergonomics. The E-M1 series is a good example. Yes, it's bigger but it's just so good to hold. Everything is well-placed, except the power button, but that can be moved to a different Fn button. Some older photographers here treat the E-M1 II and up as a proper wonder because many of are able to shoot again with their shaky right hand with that camera. Preferences change over time, though, and oftentimes it comes with age, as we all know.

Phones have a larger display surface than rear LCDs, providing a less cluttered view (something I see as in the same direction as @gordo's observation on match needles) that's a bit easier to work with as a touch surface.
Copy that. I can see how such external viewfinder can help with such condition.

Personally, across SLR, 6x7, 4x5, DSLR, compacts, mirrorless, and phones I've used 15 different cameras extensively along with occasionally other SLRs, 645, 6x6, and a rangefinder. So my photography's never emphasized the sort of intensive training and muscle memory which seems to bind photographers to (D)SLR style layouts.
Completely understood. The variety of preferences is actually entertaining. It's good that we live in a world where everything is almost nearly available for us to try. Cheers.
 
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Going back to the original post, a deal breaker for me is the lack of smallish lens in the line up. Ideally affordable options would be good too.
While not an absolute deal breaker, strongly prefer ibis or at least lens stabilisation
 
Am back for round three:

Horrible, non-intuitive menus and updates requiring a PC, dedicated cable and internet access...

Yes, Olympus I am looking at you!

I sold off the TG-6 over the "light" version Oly menus it used. Having now spent a year or two dabbing with the Stylus and from last summer, the XZ1 and working "hard" to learn the about the menus, I took a leap of faith this autumn and dipped into the Pens and E-Ms, the menus are still rather horrible, and some of the choices used as standards are, I shall be nice and say odd. If I wasn't so nice, I would call it a masterpiece of German programming... :unsure:

Convoluting the customs menu?
Three layers deep?
Turning the SCP off as standard?
and having to activate it not once, but in quite a few places?
Firmware updates which bricks the camera if connection is lost?

What are you smoking over there?

That said, upgrading five bodies without hiccups was a rather smooth and straight forward process, after watching a couple of youtube videos and actually stuffing the Mini USB plug into the Mini USB socket instead of using taboo words and being highly red faced, while trying to make it fit in the mini HMDI socket. I`ll upgrade the rest of the bodies later, this evening.... :drinks:

The 25 Euro E-PM1, was suddenly a proper little responsive thingy, getting to FM version 1.6 instead of 1.0, the other one, which had FM1.3 was GTG from I got it, but then again, it was also twice as expensive... 😄
 
Firmware updates which bricks the camera if connection is lost?
No. A very common misconception, Jens.

The firmware is downloaded to the computer, then checksum is checked.

Only after this has been successfully completed can the camera or lens f/w update begin. i.e. a break in the internet connection cannot brick anything except the download.

Never even touch the camera or USB cable while the f/w update is occurring!

Lens updates take far longer than body updates due to the (very) narrow data path to the lens (2 bits wide?).

Follow the Web site instructions to the letter.

WAIT for the OK to display on the rear screen before touching anything.

Hundreds of updates later, I've never bricked a single item. Even talked my brother through it on the phone, and he is totally technologically illiterate.

I have also done hundreds of f/w updates to computer bits and pieces using the exact same method. Not a single failure.

Far more importantly is power supply failure!! If your area is prone to flakey power supply, use a laptop with a fully charged battery for the update.

If you do manage to brick a body, there is always LIGHTSNOWDEV and an SD card method as backup to get a working system.

This is an often repeated, and wrong, criticism of the Olympus f/w update method.
 
Ran through the entire stable of Olympus cameras tonight, @John King, it went smooth and was a good experience when I got rolling. as such, it was plainer sailing than it would have been, updating the same amount of Lumix bodies. Only one now lacking update is son#1 E-M1/12-50, but I can do that tomorrow.

Good to know about the misconseption of bricking them though, it probably wouldn't hurt if it was featured prominently on the OMS website.

Still, the b...ing and moaning about the Menu system stands. If it had been easier understood, I probably wouldn't have disregarded Olympus, when I got into the M43 system. I am seriously facinated by them now, after dipping into the strip of oldies 1, 5 and 10MkII. Then again, it is after working with Lumix menus for 8 years, serious amounts of time spent on and with the Stylus and after many, many hours of Peter Forsgard, Robin Wong and a ton of other youtubers, before I got a blinding flash of the obvious, reading the review on the E-PM1 on DPR yesterday. 😄 :drinks:
 
No. A very common misconception, Jens.

The firmware is downloaded to the computer, then checksum is checked.

Only after this has been successfully completed can the camera or lens f/w update begin. i.e. a break in the internet connection cannot brick anything except the download.

Never even touch the camera or USB cable while the f/w update is occurring!

Lens updates take far longer than body updates due to the (very) narrow data path to the lens (2 bits wide?).

Follow the Web site instructions to the letter.

WAIT for the OK to display on the rear screen before touching anything.

Hundreds of updates later, I've never bricked a single item. Even talked my brother through it on the phone, and he is totally technologically illiterate.

I have also done hundreds of f/w updates to computer bits and pieces using the exact same method. Not a single failure.

Far more importantly is power supply failure!! If your area is prone to flakey power supply, use a laptop with a fully charged battery for the update.

If you do manage to brick a body, there is always LIGHTSNOWDEV and an SD card method as backup to get a working system.

This is an often repeated, and wrong, criticism of the Olympus f/w update method.
A nice feature to use if you have 2 recent vintage bodies of the same model is the ability to set one body up the way you like, do a firmware update and then update the second body to exactly the same configuration from the OM Workspace backup. The only change I made between cameras after the update was changing the image file prefix in the 2nd camera so there's no confusion regarding which file is from each camera.
 
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